Prof. Reynolds makes a great
Prof. Reynolds makes a great point about "the failure of the antiwar movement:"
I'm confident of the outcome -- when people are trying to kill you, and hate you and everything you stand for, there's nothing to do but to kill them first, and that's obvious enough for the majority of people to grasp. But the argument has been lousy because the antiwar folks can't get out of their tired old Vietnam/CISPES groove. And I think that even if we win the argument, we lose when it's a lousy one.
I think a lot of "warbloggers" feel that way. It's not the disagreement -- it's that the arguments are so idiotic, they're insulting.
This is quite right. I always get the impression that those who oppose this war are casting about aimlessly for reasons for their opposition. They may be quite sincere in their belief that opposition is appropriate, but they're not sure why, so they resort to dredging up the cliches of previous generations of protesters, and, if pressed, appealing to the authority of the grand old men of hallowed anti-American tradition. There is no question that we'd all be better off if the hawks among us were challenged with something less flimsy and trivial than rote Chomskyology or wanton Pilgering. The theory and the practice of this war would benefit from a less silly discourse on the subject. Presumably even the anti-war folks believe that it would be desirable to prevent these enemies from blowing (more of) us up. So without recourse to conspiracy theories, obscure invocations of the "cycle of violence," plans to pacify the planet through a program of ritual self-flagellation, speculation on the President's IQ, other amusing diversions of that stripe: how would we accomplish this goal without military action? (Hint: doing nothing in hopes that the problem will go away of its own accord was already tried in the '90s, and it failed bigtime.)
Posted by Dr. Frank at February 1, 2002 09:22 AM
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